After being detained on March 28, 2009 and later sentenced to five years in prison in February of this year for “inciting subversion of state power,” Tan Zuoren’s appeal has been denied.  On June 9, the Sichuan Provincial High People’s Court announced during a twelve minute hearing that it was upholding its verdict of five years in prison and three years of deprivation of political rights against Tan Zuoren.  Tan's independent investigation into the collapse of school buildings that led to over 5,000 student deaths during the Sichuan earthquake disaster brought about his conviction.  Tan had discovered that the collapses were largely due to shoddy school construction with many buildings lacking the supports or emergency exits necessary to prevent such a catastrophe in the event of a natural disaster. The apparent gross violation of specific building codes has caused much of the public to call on the government to do a full investigation, but so far there has been little if any effort from Beijing to pursue the matter further.  (Read more after the jump)

I'm in the process of pulling together a presentation on the special tension between security and openness faced by organizations like the Laogai Research Foundation, who serve the impossible-to-secure dissidents of the repressive Chinese Communist Party.  So I was particularly interested, in light of our Twitter campaign to Free Liu Xiaobo, and our own interest in how the growing community of Chinese dissidents on Twitter have managed to create a much-needed public forum, in the question posed yesterday by C. Custer - "Is it a trap?"

Is Twitter a trap?  Custer certainly makes a compelling argument that Twitter, as an immensely popular micro-blogging service, provides a lovely pool of material for "would-be prosecutors to compile evidence of thoughtcrime".  And he certainly doesn't overstate the danger involved in public dissent in China - Just last week activist Tan Zuoren was sentenced to 5 years in prison for reporting on the Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Municipal High Court rejected the appeal of democracy activist Liu Xiaobo.  There is reason to be concerned about the safety of the Twitter community of Chinese dissidents, and to a certain extent the platform is the responsibility of its creator.  (Read more after the jump)

After waiting since last August for a restart to his stalled trial, Chinese activist, and one of Time Magazine’s Ten Heroes of 2009, Tan Zuoren was sentenced to five years in prison.  Tan was compiling a report detailing the destruction that resulted from the Sichuan earthquake when he was arrested on the broad charge of “subversion” a tactic used by the Chinese government to put dissidents into prison for long periods of time.  After today’s pronouncement, Tan Zuoren’s lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang announced that the sentence Tan received was the maximum possible and they are planning to appeal the decision.  Fellow Sichuan earthquake activist and Twitter enthusiast Ai Weiwei said of the Tan Zuoren trial, “I think this is a very important case for China, more important than that of Liu Xiaobo.  It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan's 'crime' was entirely one of speech, of conscience."

In further dissident news, Liu Xiaobo’s lawyer reports that the Beijing Courts are going to start his client’s second trial at 9am this Thursday, February 11 and his wife will be allowed to visit him.  While his lawyer remains hopeful that international pressure will have an effect on this second trial, Liu remains uncertain of what this second trial will bring.